Exam Room Conversation
by LaceyLouLou82
Summary: Elizabeth patches AJ up after a second mishap with Sonny. A/H.


_**A/N: **_** I wrote this as part of the Flash Fic challenge on the Quiz board a loooooong time ago . It sucks but I'm sharing it anyway. LOL **

**Prompt ****: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~~ Albert Einstein**

_````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````Quiz~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

"_Stay away from Sonny." _

Her words replayed in his mind as he stepped off the elevator and slowly made his way to the nurse's hub. He hadn't listened to her of course, because well he was stupid. A young woman with long dark curls and big black glasses smiled at him. "Can I help you?"

"umm, Is, ah is Elizabeth working today?" He was suddenly nervous and frowned at his voice for betraying it. He had known Elizabeth Webber since she and his sister had been in high school. There was absolutely no reason for him to be acting like this.

The nurse nodded, "She is but she is with a patient right now. I'm Sabrina. Can I do something for you?" Aj turned his head so that his recent wound was visible to her. "Oh."

"Elizabeth patched me up the other day but I pulled the stitches out. "

Sabrina grabbed a blue folder from a large pile on the next and handed it to a doctor passing by without even taking her eyes off of AJ Quartermaine. She had recognized him the second he had sauntered over to the desk and asked for Elizabeth. Thanks to all the media coverage of his return from the dead. "I can re-stitch you if you want, or you can wait for Nurse Webber. "

Aj smiled at the young nurse," you can do it. I am sure Elizabeth has plenty of other patients." Sabrina motioned for him to follow her and lead them into the same room Elizabeth had taken care of him in the other day. He hoisted himself up on the table while she gathered the supplied she needed.

"So, you seem like you know Elizabeth from outside the hospital. "

Aj nodded even though Sabrina's back was to him. "She was really good friends with my brother, Jason and best friends with my sister Emily. "

The nurse turned around with a sad look on her face. "I am really sorry about your brother. I didn't know him, but I have heard Elizabeth and some others talking about him. It seems like everyone had a different opinion about Mr. Morgan. "

"Yeah." He didn't say anything else. Talking about Jason wasn't something he wanted to do with a stranger. Especially a stranger that hadn't even known his brother.

"Well Elizabeth is great so I totally understand why your siblings liked her. She has been nothing but kind to me. Especially with this entire Nurse's Ball mess. "

"Nurse's Ball mess?"

Sabrina smiled brightly as she walked closer and got to work on fixing up his injury. "Elizabeth, Patrick Drake and I are trying to bring it back. Were you ever in it?"

Aj nodded and a soft smile spread across his face, "I was. The Nurse's Ball was an amazing event. "

"Little Emma Drake, do you know her?" When Aj shook his head, Sabrina explained "she is Dr. Robin Scorpio Drake's daughter and she is convinced that the Ball was a party especially for her mom. She is the reason we want this to happen so badly. For little Emma. "

"That's a very good reason. " Aj didn't know until now that Robin had a daughter. It made him sad. Once upon a time he had considered Robin a friend. She was even the reason that he found out about Michael.

"Except that we can't seem to get anyone to underwrite it. " Sabrina said with a frustrated sigh. She was about to continue when the room door opened and Elizabeth walked in.

"Sabrina …" Elizabeth started but stopped when she saw Aj sitting on the bed and Sabrina tending to his head wound. "Seriously?" She lifted her eyebrows in Aj's direction.

He gave her a guilty smile, "I don't listen very well. "

She shook her head at him before glancing at Sabrina, "Epiphany needs you on the floor. She told me to take over with your patient. "

Sabrina stood up and started taking off her latex gloves. "He is all done except the bandage." She tossed her gloves in the trashcan before slipping out the door. Elizabeth pulled a pair of gloves out of her blue scrub top pocket and stretched them on her hands before taking her co-worker's abandoned seat in front of Aj.

"I may have gotten in front of Sonny's fist again. " He explained.

Elizabeth didn't say anything as she opened up a gauze bandage and secured it with some surgical tape.

"Sonny knows how to push my buttons like no one else. " He tried to explain but again she remained silent as she took a pen out of her pocket and began making notes on a chart that Sabrina had left behind. "Elizabeth." When she looked up at him, he had a concerned look on her face. "Are you mad at me?"

"No. Why would I be made at you?"

"you told me to stay away from sonny and I didn't listen."

"I knew you weren't going to listen to me." She pushed the little medal stool away from the exam table, but didn't stand up. "You do not owe me any explanations. "

AJ sighed, "so basically you aren't surprised by my behavior?"

"Not really. I'm not really surprised by Sonny's either. You and I haven't ever been close friends, AJ but I know about your history. Especially with Sonny and Carly. "

"You know what Emily and Jason told you. "

''which was the truth. You did terrible things, they did terrible things. Michael is an adult now."

AJ looked down at his hands. She was right of course but he had so much anger at Sonny and Carly for all the time he missed out on with his son because they deemed him unfit. Sure, he did horrible, hurtful things to a lot of people, especially the people he cared about. But Sonny and Carly have done bad things too, yet they got free passes while he was made to suffer. It wasn't fair. But him acting like a teenager, picking fights, wasn't fair either. Not to himself and not to Michael. "I am not the same guy anymore."

"I know." Now that surprised AJ. "The old AJ wouldn't care what I thought about his stupid propensity to taunt our local gangster into bashing his skull in. "She stood up and removed her gloves. " In fact, I am pretty sure the old AJ barely ever spoke to me. "

That made him frown. "I spoke to you. "

"Occasionally. " She tossed her gloves into the trashcan and then washed her hands. "But despite the number of people we had in common, we never had a real conversation. "

She was right again. He already been so caught up in his jealousy of Jason when Elizabeth and Emily had become friends. He hadn't paid attention to their friendship very much but looking back now he couldn't remember a time when this woman hadn't had his sisters back. "I am sorry about that. I was a jerk back then. My mind was on revenge from the time I woke up in the morning till I fell asleep at night."

"I am not blaming you for anything AJ. "

"You were Emily's best friend. I should have paid more attention to that. "

She rolled her eyes. "What were you gonna do AJ, put on your pjs and dance around to the backstreet boys in Emily's room with us?"

That made him smile. More than once he had barged into Emily's room intending to tell the two girls to turn the music down but found them jumping around on his sister's bed with hair brushes singing and dancing. "That would have been a sight. "

Elizabeth smiled. "We would have totally taken pictures to blackmail you with." 'She put the chart down on the counter and folded her arms across her chest.

He chuckled at that because he fully believed that they would have. " I miss her. "

"Me too. Every day. "

" I made so many mistakes with her. She hated me. "

Elizabeth shook her head, " no she didn't. Emily loved you. She didn't understand you but she loved you. "

"How could she ? I did really bad things to people that Emily loved. "

" Maybe she didn't always agree with the things you did¸but she did love you AJ. Just as much as she loved Jason."

"I don't know about that."

" I do. "

He believed her. She was the person that probably knew Emily better than anyone else in the world. She would know. " I loved her too. So much."

"She knew that."

" I hope so. " He couldn't even remember the last words that he said to his baby sister. The girl who brought so much love and light to their family.

Elizabeth reached out and put a reassuring hand on his arm. " Trust me, she knew. "

He looked down at her small hand and smiled. A shiver went through him at her comforting touch and he didn't recall ever feeling something like that ever before. Not with Nikki, Julia, Keesha, Carly, Courtney, anyone. And ever since he had seen her here in this very room the other day, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. His sister's best friend. His brother's ex. It probably wasn't right. Yet, he couldn't himself. "Thank you. " She smiled at him again then removed her hand. He felt the loss immediately. He also sensed that she was about to leave and he wasn't ready for that yet. ''So um, that other nurse mentioned you guys were having trouble with resurrecting the Nurse's Ball. "

"No one wants the responsibility of putting up the money. I get it. I mean it could be a huge failure. Or it could be more successful than ever. Either way, the people in this town need to be reminded about how precious life is."

He wasn't sure if it was dig at him or not but it didn't feel like on. She was right. No one, including himself, seemed to remember that in a split second life could change forever. " I want to help. "

"Really?" She couldn't contain her excitement and he couldn't help but find the way her blue eye lite up completely adorable. "We asked Tracy but she turned us down. "

AJ made a face, "Well she would. But I won't. Do you guys have a proposal or something? "

Elizabeth nodded. "Sabrina put one together. I can probably get you a copy. Or you know what Sabrina, Patrick and I are meeting tonight at Kelly's to talk about the ball. Why don't you stop by and Sabrina can give you her whole spiel."

"Ok. I am supposed to meet Michael there anyway. "

"Great. I will see you then. "She turned to leave, but turned back at him, "how about you let that heal before you let Sonny beat on you again. " She nodded towards his head with a smile. He smiled back and she gave him a small wave before letting herself out of the room.

As the door closed behind her, Elizabeth shook her head. She shouldn't be thinking about how nice AJ Quartermaine's smile was or how it had affected her. That feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn't one she really needed to explore. Nothing good ever happened for her when she got that feeling. It would be best for her to remember that AJ was Jason's brother and it would be better for everyone if she just get this little attraction that she was feeling towards AJ go.

"Elizabeth, " the door opened behind her and AJ stepped out. " Thank you, for taking care of me again." She gave her that smile again. He really should patent it because it was one of a kind. She nodded once and watched as he got on the elevator. Yes, it would definitely do her good to remember that AJ Quatermaine was off limits. She had made enough of a mess when it comes to her personal life and she really didn't need to repeat past mistakes. No more bad boys and no more brothers. Her never ending circle of diasterous relationships is over. No matter how tempted she was to throw caution to the wind and see how many times she could make that smile appear on his face.

**END**


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